


the she-wolf and the witcher

by lily_of_this_valley



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Child Abandonment, Destiny once again fucks over Geralt for his own good, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jon Snow is Not Called Aegon, Jon Snow is still a bastard, Just saying that now, Kaer Morhen, Lyanna Stark Lives, Minor Character Death, Multi, Not between Geralt and Lyanna, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Stays majorly canon for both main plots, Teenage Pregnancy, Teenage Rebellion, Tower of Joy, Underage Rape/Non-con, Unexplicit Sex, VERY IMPORANT, Well maybe a little, and diverts for Lyanna in the Tower of Joy, and led nowhere, because the marriage plot line was shit, for Geralt’s entire lifestyle, for Visenna, gone wrong, have to include those tags because of the Rhaegar/Lyanna situation, no angst on my Christian Minecraft server, so im gleefully ignoring it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22833520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_of_this_valley/pseuds/lily_of_this_valley
Summary: The she-wolf of Winterfell, Lyanna Stark, has always had a name on her arm.The White Wolf of Kaer Morhen, Geralt of Rivia, has always had a name on his.Neither of them want it.~~~In which Destiny cares very little for what Lyanna Stark or Geralt of Rivia want.
Relationships: Arthur Dayne & Lyanna Stark, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Vesemir, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Lyanna Stark, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Original Female Character(s), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Original Male Character(s), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jon Snow & Lyanna Stark, Lyanna Stark & Ned Stark, Lyanna Stark & Wylla (ASoIaF), Lyanna Stark/Original Female Character(s), Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen
Comments: 24
Kudos: 132





	1. Preface — Geralt of Rivia

Geralt had believed in Destiny, as a boy. 

He had been the bastard son of a druid healer, and the idea of _fate, adventure, grand love,_ had seemed appetizing when he knew, even then, that he had very little to look forward to in life. 

Then came that empty road in Temeria, and Geralt is left with a waterskin in one hand and his red toy knight in the other. He had taken it with him on his _adventure_ through the woods, though he had left the horse that was painted to match. He would have brought that horse with him, if he had known. 

_What’s a knight without a horse,_ the boy-that-will-be-of-Rivia thinks, clutching all his has left of his mother in one tight fist. He looks at the clumsily-painted face of his knight, and wonders if he misses the horse, in the way that toys surely miss things. He misses his mother, and his knight misses the horse, but his knight keeps him company, just like the horse must keep his mother company. 

_You’ll see her again,_ he tells his knight quietly besides a campfire somewhere in the Blue Mountains, the old Witcher off hunting for something in the woods, _just like i’ll see my mother, and they’ll be happy and never leave us again._

\---

There is training and potions and empty beds that won’t be filled again. Until the next batch of boys, of course. 

Geralt is not naive enough to believe they will be the last. He hasn’t been that naive in awhile now, perhaps since Fec choked on his own blood or Mikhail clawed out his eyes or Targa died in his sleep. 

Perhaps it’s all three, and more. 

\---

There is a name on Geralt’s arm, though he avoids looking at it these days. It’s blue against the twisted tissue of his bicep, and in a woman’s hand. He had marvelled over it, years ago. Before white hair and yellow eyes and infertilty. 

If he ever met the woman whose name was engraved on his arm, he wonders if she would look him in the eye before she spat at him. 

He doubts it. Destiny is nonsense at the best of times, and cruel at the very worst. 

No woman would be happy with him, not with his scars and his snarls and his very _self._

 _Lyanna Stark_ would be no different, no matter fate's whims.


	2. Preface—Lyanna Stark

Lyanna Stark is seven years old when her mother dies. It’s a fever that takes Lyarra Stark, daughter of mountains and frost, and it steals her strength and steely resolve out from under her. It rages for two weeks, during which her mother shakes and cries, as helpless as a babe. She calls for _mother, father, branda;_ but she calls for _rickard_ above all. Rickard Stark, father and lord and a drawn face with averted eyes, flees his wife’s sickbed when the names start; but Lyanna cannot leave her, the woman who sang her _brave danny flint_ and gave her the first sword she had ever held. 

Brandon hides in the practice yard and Ned is away at the _stupid_ Eyrie and Benjen won’t stop crying, no matter how much Old Nan rocks him. They all leave her poor mother alone, sweating and murmuring with tears on her cheeks. All except for Lyanna, who’s always had more heart then sense. All except for Lyanna, who stays.

She stays, but it scares her; to see her brave mother weep and cry out to ghosts that have been gone for years. It is there that Lyanna sees death for the first time. 

The sickroom presses down on her like a tomb, and the incense the maester burns hurts the back of her throat and makes her cough. She wonders how making her mother cough more is supposed to help her be better. It’s a question she would ask Mother, if she were awake to hear it. 

It feels like the crypt under Winterfell, where all her ancestors are laid to rest. Lyanna thinks of stone statues and cold, dead eyes, and tries not to think of her mother in one of those tombs. 

It is late at night, Winterfell made quiet with exhaustion and illness, and she feels like the only person in the world. 

Lyanna is laying next to her mother when she dies, head resting by her fluttering sides. She was humming _brave danny flint,_ hoping above all else that her mother will wake up and kiss her forehead and call her a clever girl for remembering all the words all by herself. Even as she gets to the part where Danny takes the Black; Lyarra Stark, warrior and mother and bold as brass, slips quietly from the world, breath there one moment and gone the next. 

She doesn’t notice, not at first; not until the song is done and she sits up to see if her mother woke up to her singing, hoping to find open eyes and a soft smile to greet her—but Lyarra Stark is cold and quiet and far, far too still. 

She lays her head on her mother’s chest and hitches a breath when there is nothing to break the quiet, no heartbeat tattering to the howl of the wind outside of the keep. She thinks about running for father, for Brandon, for the maester—but it is too late for Lyarra Stark, and Lyanna doesn’t want to leave her. She falls asleep in that last embrace, cheeks wet and humming the tune as best as she could remember. The hair of mother and daughter mingles on the sweat-soaked pillows and, in the dim candle light, they look one and the same. 

——

It is there, laying in that sickbed with her mother’s body stiff and tears soaking into her shift, that Lyanna learns that everything she loves will die someday. 

——

There is nowhere in the world that Lyanna feels larger than the Godswood. 

Brandon had laughed, once, when he told her that; had called her too big for her britches and ruffled her hair until she attempted to shove him into a snowbank. Father had frowned when she told him the same, and had taken her by the arm, leading her away from sentinel trees and whispering woods. Rickard Stark had never been a warm father, but Lyarra’s death had turned him into a walking man of frost, and his next words were like the Wall given shape in front of her. _Do not be arrogant, Lyanna,_ he had said, _you will tempt the Gods to wrath with words like that._

She wasn’t quite sure what he had meant by that, really. Why would the Gods be angry with her for feeling powerful in their place of worship? It meant she belonged there, it meant she was a daughter of Winterfell and the First Men, that ice ran like blood through her veins. There, she was not a little girl of ten with sword calluses and a long, narrow face. In the Godswood, Lyanna could be anyone. All men came to the Gods as equal, Old Nan said, whether they be King or blacksmith. 

To the Gods, it mattered little that Lyanna was a girl, a bargaining chip. It was an intoxicating feeling, to be seen to the soul and be judged for that, not for how she smiled was lady-like or if she curtsied correctly. 

The wind whistled through the trees; almost like a voice, high and wavering. It felt like a brush of her mother’s hand across her cheek, soothing and cool. Lyanna smiled, lifted her brow to the snow, and laughed in the place of the Gods, clear and loud. 

——

Ever since she was very small, Lyanna has had a name on her back, following the curve of her spine. She can’t see it without the assistance of a mirror, and stayed oblivious to the significance of those little words until around four years of age. 

Her mother had scooped her up from the floor in her solar where Lyanna played quietly with a horse figure carved from wood, settling the young girl in her lap and stroking her hair with ink-stained fingertips. It was a rare moment of peace in the loud household, with Rickard and Brandon in the practice yard with a bow and Ned already gone for his first year fostering with Jon Arryn. It must have felt fitting, then, for Lyarra to tell her daughter of a very important thing that shouldn’t be interrupted. 

The lady of Winterfell smoothed a steady hand down her only daughter’s spine and smiled her secretive little smile that made Rickard Stark groan something about mischief when he saw it. “My flower,” Lyarra said, and tapped Lyanna’s little nose when she peered up at her mother, “What do you know about soulmarks?” 

Still giggling from her mother’s tease, Lyanna kicked her legs back and forth and hummed a little. “They’re special. You and papa have ones that’re matching. And you shouldn’t show it to people.” The girl nodded once for emphasis, a serious look not unlike the one her father often sported coming over her face. It was a comical sight on a barely-grown babe with a permanent pout, but Lyarra forged on with nary a laugh. Flints of the Mountains were made of sterner stuff than Starks, to be sure. 

“Yes, flower, but there’s something you’ve forgotten.” Lyarra smiled at her daughter, and smoothed down the unruly waves identical to her own. Pressing a kiss to her daughter’s chubby cheek, she whispered into Lyanna’s ear like they were sharing a very important secret. “You have one too, my sweet.” Lyanna’s eyes went wide, and sparkled with a level of joy reserved normally for sweet berry tarts and freshly fallen snow. 

She traced a hand down the girl’s spine, fingers lingering between her shoulders. “Right here, little wind, just down your back. It is small, but it will grow with you.” Lyanna squealed and struggled to reach being herself to touch where her mother’s hands lingered. Her mother laughed, and tugged down the girl’s dress collar for wandering little digits to have access. 

“What’s it say? What’s it say? Mama, say it, say it!” Lyanna grasped at her mother’s dress with one hand and patted her own shoulder with the other. Laughing, Lyarra peered over her daughter’s messy head of hair to read the words scribbled there. 

Written in a firmly precise hand with a shifting gold color, vertically between Lyanna’s tiny shoulderblades, was the name _Geralt of Rivia._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the Prefaces are done, and Geralt and Lyanna get to start their journeys as we know them—for a while, at least. 
> 
> I love feedback, tell me what you think of all this in the comments!!


End file.
